Chapter 8

We are currently inside the forest, and about one mile away from the marked location. So far we haven’t ran into anything, but we are still all on guard. I am starting to think that the forest still might be protecting me as a traveller. I hope not as that would make our quest quite hard to complete. I am currently in front and in my hands is one of the things that I worked on over the last week, a shield made of compressed earth. While it make not be as good as iron, it is as strong as bronze. Also due to the fact it is made from earth I can change its form easily even during combat. Truthfully I was thinking of making a full armor set like this shield but I couldn’t handle that. Instead I have ended up with the second item I was working on making a staff made from compressed earth. It took me a while to figure out which weapon I would like to use, but in the end I decided with a staff, at first I wanted to make a spear, but the sharp edge was easily destroyed each time I tested it. So in the end I compromised.

Behind me is Robin who is wearing her blue robe. She also has the water sack insert from my backpack on her back. We decided that this way she could fight with her preferred element. Next to Robin is Emily who is wearing a white robe and has a white staff in her hands. Behind them is Cef who is currently wielding an iron sword, while wearing heavy leather armor. The set looks pretty expensive and from my knowledge would probably cost around two platinum coins give or take a bit. When I asked him how he got the weapon and armor, he told me that they were gifts from his village that he received when he left home. He pointed towards Emily’s staff and robe and told me that those were also gifts, and that the staff is made from a light willow. A willow tree that is completely white and will help your control and absorption of the light element. Pretty nice equipment they have. Maybe I should have looked more into getting the correct equipment instead of just winging it.

As we are getting closer to our destination, we hear a rustle in bushes up ahead, and from the amount of noise it is making it’s not a Uni-Rabbit. I tighten my grip on the shield and the staff and prepare myself for whatever is behind the bush. A short ugly green creature pops out from the bush, the goblin seemed to have notice us straight away. It starts making loud guttural noises, while waving a club above it's head. Truly I don’t see why these guys are considered scary, I mean they are ugly that is for sure, but they have no physical or mental advantage. “Hey guys are you ok if I take this one, I want to see if I have improved at all.” “Sure just be careful, don’t want you dying because you are too carefree.” Emily gives me the greenlight and I move a bit forward and prepare myself. “Come at me Ugly.” I am not sure whether or not the goblin understood me, but it stopped it's rambling and looked straight at me. It then started to run right at me with it's club raised above his head. As soon as the goblin get into range of my staff I stab forward with it, and nail the goblin directly in the middle of the chest. The goblin slams into the ground hard, and his club goes flying. I quickly move to the side of the gobin and stab my staff into the eye of the goblin and into it's brain killing it. “Good job” Emily says from behind me. “Thank you, but these guys really aren’t much of a fight.” I fought harder things back on earth, although I usually have traps that did most of the work. Cef walks past me towards the goblin and cuts off the right ear of it, “We need this for proof that we completed the quest.” He shows me the ear, “Also John let me show you why you need to be careful with goblins. I am going to attack you try to defend like with the goblin.” Hm I wonder what he was going to show me. He sets himself a bit aways, but in front of me with his sword held out front. “Here I come.” Giving me the signal he raises his sword above his head like the goblin and starts to run at me, when he gets into range I repeat the same attack by thrusting the staff at the middle of Cefs chest. “Stop” Right when Cef was about to collide with my staff he yells for us to stop. When he does I stare at him for a second, then I notice a feeling on my lower back. A cold and pointy feeling looking behind me I find Emily and she has a small dagger lightly pressed against me. “Do you see now why you shouldn’t take goblins more seriously? You are still new to fighting and in the heat of the battle you might not notice a goblin coming from behind you. Especially if you are fighting five or more goblins.” Cef motions at Emily who put the dagger back into her pouch. I guess I let the blood rush to my head. Robin and I even agreed earlier that ten goblins is too much for us to handle and here I am making an ass of myself for being to confident. “You’re right, I am sorry for getting to big headed. Also thank you for bringing me back down to earth and teaching me this lesson.” “You use some weird expressions, but I understand what you are trying to say, and you’re welcome. Though I really shouldn’t be acting so high noble myself, considering me and Emily are the same rank as you guys.” Cef started laughing at himself, but I know he is just trying to help me and I really am thankful for that. “Are you boys done bonding now, we still need to do the quest.” Emily breaks up me and Cef’s chat, and reminds us where we are. “You’re right let’s get a move on.

We are just about at the marked location, so we have started to move as silently as we can. I am first to spot a cave entrance, along with that I see two goblins slowly pacing in front of the entrance. I am guessing they are the guards. “Guys.” I quietly call over the rest and point at the goblins. Emily starts to whisper to us, “Taking them out from a distance would be the best option. Though I don’t think any of us have that type of control yet.” At this distance I have no chance of hitting either of them. Robin on the other hand, “Robin can’t you do that?” Robin looks towards the goblins once again then turns back to us. “I believe I can.” Didn’t really create a sense of confidence, but from what I have seen Robin do she should be able to do this. “If you think you can Robin this is what we will do. First you will take out the one on the left, then go for the one on the right. John I want you to get as close as you can to the goblin on the left without being seen. If Robin misses I want you to take care of him. Cef I want you to do the same for the one on the right, but if she misses her first shot jump out right away. I will stay with Robin to watch her back. I am giving you two, one minutes to get into position.” With Emily’s plan set we take action, I quickly but silently as I can make my way to the goblin. I can only get about ten yards away from him any closer and I would be found. I silently wait for the action to start, while I wait I decided to give myself a little push off point. Right when about one minutes pass I see two quick flashes of white fly out from Robin’s position. I quickly jump out ready to take on a goblin in case Robin missed, but instead I find a goblin with a horizontal opening going through his head. WIth one dead I turn to check on the other, and I see Cef just standing over another dead goblin. Looks like there was nothing ever to worry about, I knew Robin was practicing, but it looks like her control went up again.

Cef comes over and cuts off the ear of the goblin, Robin and Emily come out from behind the bush, “Good job Robin, looks like your control increased.” “Thank you” “That was some nice aim, I truly didn’t think you could hit both of them, and at the same time.” Cef compliments Robin, in a bit of a roundabout way, and he receives a head nod from Robin. Emily claps her hands to get our focus, “Ok guys no one in the cave should know we are here, so that is our advantage. We are going to switch positions, I want Cef to be behind John now. There shouldn’t be any change to be attacked from behind in the cave.” Cef gives her a quick nod acknowledging the change. Emily then continues her instructions, “We are going to go in quietly, hopefully we can catch them off guard and finish off most of them before the fighting even starts. If we can sneak up on them I want Robin to do the same thing you just did. We have already killed three of the supposed ten so there should only be seven more give or take a couple. One the fighting begins I want you two, to each occupy at least two goblins each.” Emily points to me and Cef. “Robin you will be our range damage and try to take out the ones in the back. I will be calling out information and healing anyone that needs it. If everything goes smoothly no one should be hurt at all.” Everyone nods their head understanding the orders.

The cave itself is pretty narrow, we are currently walking in a single file line, while moving quietly as we can. Emily created a ball of light that is currently hovering over us, so that we don’t run into anything. After a couple of seconds walking like this I notice that the path is better a bit bigger now. The path continues to widen as we move along, and at this point we could be moving in a two by two formation if we wanted to. Right as we turn a corner the path opens up into a small cavern with stalagmites everywhere. I can feel the earth elemental power is a lot denser here. A little further into the cavern I spot four goblins, two are fighting each other over a bone, and the other two seem to be sleeping. I quickly motion for the others to stop and point towards the goblins. After everyone notices we move back around the corner so we aren’t seen by them. Emily points towards Robin silently telling her that she is up. Robin nods and I start to see water flow from the bag on her back over her shoulders and into her palms. The water quickly turns into ice, and Robin moves to my side. With the preparation done we move back around the corner, silently Robin moves closer to the goblins. She takes aim at the two fighting goblins, “Graaaaabga” from our left side we hear a goblin shout. We look over towards the sounds and see a lone goblin there, apparently one of the goblins was hidden behind a stalagmite. I turn back towards Robin, “Shoot them” Robin fires her ice shards, but the goblins that were fighting were now aware of us and move out of the way of the shards. They then start to charge us with clubs in hand. “John hold off those two, Cef deal with the one on the left, and Robin try to take out the sleeping ones before they get up.” Emily start giving out instructions and I take a defensive stance readying myself for the goblins.

These two aren’t as open as the first goblin I faced, but aren’t that much better. The first one arrives and I meet his club with my shield, the impact is hard but not something I can’t handle. Right after I receive the club the second goblin reaches me, I quickly thrust my staff at him, unfortunately I only catch his shoulder knocking him off balance. The first goblin raises his club again to strike, but I quickly swipe my staff at his knees, I hear a sick snapping noise and he topples over. A stop slightly at the noise only to receive a heavy hit to the side of my ribs. The hit sends me toppling forward, but I stay standing with the help of my staff. I am pretty sure I have a fractured rib now, but I can’t lose focus. “Robin has taken one of the sleeping goblins out, and Cef dealt with his, but the other goblin is coming our way. Cef you take it on, John I heal you just hold off the second one” I hear good news from Emily, and start to feel a light sensation around my rib area. I block another strike from the goblin, and the light sensation starts to fade, it's still a bit tender but I think my ribs are back to normal. Just as I am about to send a thrust into the chest of the goblin his head jerks to the side unnaturally. The goblin slumps over and I notice an ice shard sticking out of his head. I look at Robin who is already preparing another ice shard, “Thanks Robin.” “No problem.” Turning back I focus on the goblin that is still on the ground howling, I send a hit to the side of it’s head knocking it out, then I stab through the eye just like with the previous goblin. “Good job John, and sorry for making you handle two of them.” I look up from the goblin to see Cef walking back towards me covered in blood and carrying three goblin ears. One of the downsides to using a sword I guess. “Thanks and no problem, it's really good for me to experience this.” I wave him off to show that there's no problem. “Great job everyone, with five more down there should only be about two goblins left, which should be easy to handle. John how is your side?” Emily looks a bit concerned. “Your healing was great, I can barely even notice it anymore. I am also amazed that you can heal me from a distance, can you do that also Robin?” Robin paused for a second then said, “I have never tried, never a need to heal someone from afar.” Robin looks a bit sad, maybe I shouldn’t have compared her to Emily. “Don’t worry Robin your healing is also great, and your ice shard really helped me out.” With that Robin’s face went back to her default face, which is better than her being sad.

“Well we still have more cave to clear, but let's eat lunch first, though we still need to be on guard in case a goblin is roaming around.” With those words, everyone started taking out their lunches. For me and Robin we still had some rabbit meat from before, I had Robin freeze it so that it wouldn’t go bad. “Robin if you could.” I hand over the meat so she can heat it up again, Robin being a witch is really convenient in situations like these, now if only we had a way to carry more stuff. “Hey Emily or Cef do you guys know of a way to carry more stuff, but in a smaller container?” My backpack is good, but the more fighting we get into the more it is going to get in the way. Emily responds first, “I think you are talking about dark storage, it's an enchantment that dark element users can put on items that allow them to store items. It's really convenient, but also really expensive, probably cheaper to get a slave with dark element to learn it.” Hm i wonder if Robin can learn it? “Hey Robin do you think you can learn it?” Robin almost immediately shakes her head, “No, I have very bad affinity with dark element, I still can’t absorb more than a speck of the element.” Shit looks like that's not happening. Well I guess I am sticking with the backpack for a while longer. Anyways we finished up lunch with no enemies showing up, and proceeded to get back into gear.

Once again we are creeping through the cave and the path is narrow again, but for some reason there seems to be a light source ahead. Slowly we make our way through a winding path, and ahead there is another cavern. “Stupid people you should of never have come here.” A voice coming from the cavern ahead is heard, and it seems like they know we are here. I look back towards Emily to see what she wants me to do. Emily also looks worried, motions me to keep moving forward. We quickly reach the cavern and can see two goblins sitting next to a fire, and behind the fire there is a taller more human looking creature. “Hello my stupid guest.” The creature stands up and I hear Cef behind me say, “A hobgoblin.” Which makes sense because the creature does look like a more evolved version of a goblin. “It is unfortunate for you that you found us, as now I have to kill all of you.” Once he says that the air in the room starts to stir. Emily steps out in front of me, “You are intelligent enough to speak, so why are you attacking the farms, did you not know that people would be sent after you?” I guess Emily wants a reason to attack him. “Food of course, while I am strong there are creatures in this forest that can rip me apart. I would sooner take my chance with disgusting people that with those beasts.” Emily looks like she wants more of an answer, “Then why not come to the city and become an adventurer to earn your food?” The hobgoblin’s face turns to disgust and anger, “Go to the very city I hate, I was enslaved by those races that live there, my home was attacked and the smart ones were killed. I was smart enough to play dumb, but for five years I was a slave, treated like trash. Your people are worse than the savage goblins. Luckily I escaped with some of my kind, while the slavers were transferring us to another place down south. We escaped with some of the slavers wares, but had little food to live on.” Truly a sad story, I feel bad for the hobgoblin, if someone enslaved me for five years I would also hate them. “A very sad story, but that still does not give you the right to steal others property.” Seems like the hobgoblin’s story was not enough to convince Emily to let the him go. “It does not matter as even if you thought I was in the right, I would still have to kill you.”

The hobgoblin reaches down and picks up a iron sword and shield, once he does that the two goblins each grab a rusty sword that was next to them. Emily jumps back behind us and start giving orders, “John take the hobgoblin, Cef take care of the goblin on the left, Robin take care of the goblin on the right.” I prepare myself, and watch the hobgoblin as he starts coming at me. “Shit” Fuck he is fast, the hobgoblin was in front of me a lot quicker than I thought he would be. He strikes down with his sword and I meet it with my shield, the blow is a lot heavier than a goblins and I can tell he took a good chunk out of my shield with only one strike. In response I try to swipe his knee with my staff, but he brings his sword down and it cuts off the top part of my staff. Fuck again, he is a lot stronger than I thought he would be. He starts attacking, and I block with my shield, but with each strike more of my shield is lost. In middle of one of his strikes I thrust my staff into his shoulder, but he quickly brings his shield up and again part of my staff shatters on his shield, leaving me with about two thirds of my original staff. Right after he blocks my staff he jumps back as a ice shard sticks into the ground right where he was just standing. “John, Robin and Cef are done with their goblins.” Good, I didn’t stand a chance versus this guy by myself. “Foolish I am stronger than all three of you.” The hobgoblin takes another hop backwards, and positions the sword by his side. “Try to block this.” Shit he is doing something and I don’t like it. I transfer the rest of my staff into my shield and compress the shield into as dense of earth as possible. The hobgoblin swipes his sword from side to side, and I see blades of air shoot out from it. Two blades are coming straight for me, I barely get my shield into position when the first one strikes it. The blade of air stops, but then the second one hit and my shield is slices into pieces, the blade continues to travel and strikes me directly in the chest. I feel a hot spray of blood land on my arm as I fall backwards.

“John!” Ah don’t worry Robin I have had worse. “John stay still I will heal you.” Emily calls from behind me, and I soon start to feel the light sensation. “Cef, Robin, focus the hobgoblin, Cef flash is coming.” A big flash of light appears in the air that even I can see through my closed eyelids. “Grah” It seems to have affected the hobgoblin, I slowly sit up to find the hobgoblin now has an ice shard embedded in each of his thighs. Cef brings down his blade and it collides with the hobgoblin’s sword releasing a flame on contact. “Enough.” The hobgoblin swifty swings at Cef causing him to jump back a good distance, and the hobgoblin does the same. He positions himself the same as before he did the blades of air. Shit this time he is aiming for Robin. Robin starts to create a shield of ice on her forearm, and around her chest and neck. Two air blades are shot at Robin and collide with her shield, the blades veered off their course, but one of them nicks the water bag causing it to spill it's contents and the other one opens a deep cut onto Robin’s right arm. Shit this is not looking good at all. Robin losing her main attack, it's pretty much Cef versus the hobgoblin now, and based on how it has gone so far that will not end well. I can’t let this happen, “Robin come over here and help Emily heal me. Cef hold on just a bit longer.” The hobgoblin might be stronger and faster than we are, but he is inside a mountain which is my turf. Robin kneels down and places her hands over the large gash in my chest, it already started healing from Emily and with Robin helping it I can visible see it closing. As they were healing me I focused on the ground beneath me. I couldn’t do it before, but I need to now. I compress the earth into a spear shape as much as I can, harder and harder, the tip can’t break this time.

After about twenty seconds of purely focusing on the earth I pull the spear from the ground and it was perfect. Though I feel like all my energy has been drained, but I need to help Cef. Getting up from the ground I run over to help Cef who has a few cuts over his arms now and it bleeding pretty badly. “You’re both so close to death this will be easy.” The hobgoblin seems so assured of his victory. I stab at him with the spear and he deflects it with his shield, but the tip doesn’t break. The problem is I can’t get past his shield now. I have to wait for the right moment. More of my thrusts are blocked by his shield, and me and Cef are receiving wound after wound. The gash in my chest is bleeding really badly now and my legs are feeling wobbly. But it happens right then the hobgoblin had to block Cef with his shield. Using as much control as I can over the earth I force myself to create a six foot wall directly behind the goblin, I then use control over my spear to thrust it as hard as I can. My vision starts to narrow as blackness starts to creep in. At the last second the hobgoblin strikes at my spear, diverting the path. The last thing I see is my spear ripping into his shoulder just above his heart.